November 09, 2018

FORTUNE Magazine - Can a Thai Businessman Restore Its Influence and Profits

FORTUNE Magazine, like TIME, had once been an influential media property.

That was before digital.

Now, FORTUNE, just as TIME, has been sold by Meredith. Like TIME it wasn't able to pivot from print to digital effectively or fast enough. The issue is: Can it find its way back to influence as well as profits?

The buyer, reports The New York Times, is Thai businessman Chalchaval Jiaravanon. For him it's a private investment. His strategies to generate a profit focus on digital operations, geographical expansion, and talent.

However, native digital players are having their own challenges. Vice Media, for example, has been losing millions of dollars. Last year that totaled about $100 million. This year it's projected to be $50 million. It is reducing headcount 15% through attrition and not filling jobs.

Vice Media, along with other digitals such as Buzzfeed, has been unable to align its tone and content with online audiences whose tastes keep mutating.

Jiaravanon's job number-one is to figure out what business readers want and need and then continue to do that every second of every working day.

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